In recent years it has become increasingly common practice in the printer art, specifically including typewriters, to use inked ribbons for providing ink for printing purposes which comprise a plastic substrate having a layer of carbon and a binder disposed on one side thereof. Such ribbons are of several types; chief among these are the single-strike and the multiple-impression type ribbons. In the single-strike type ribbon, only so much ink is put on the ribbon as will permit the printing of a single character per unit area on the ribbon. In the multiple strike type, much more ink is used, so that fractions of several characters may be printed with each area of ribbon. Thus, upon each impact of a character element upon the ribbon, the ribbon advances some distance less than the width of the typical character. However, in both cases the ribbons are used but once from end to end and are then discarded. This is in contrast to the prior type of ribbon which was a fabric-backed ribbon and which had considerably more ink on it than do the present ribbons and could be reused several times. A second distinction between the prior fabric-type ribbons and the plastic-backed ribbons now commonly in use is that the fabric ribbons were not permanently deformed by the the impact of the character elements thereon, whereas the plastic ribbons now in use tend to be stretched beyond their elastic limit when impacted by a character element and therefore are deformed from an essentially flat, strip-like configuration into a bellied strip-like configuration. This can cause difficulties in the re-winding of the ribbon after use for storage prior to disposal. In particular, the plastic-backed ribbons are so thin, and so much ribbon is put into the typical ribbon cartridge in which these ribbons are supplied, and in which they are stored after use, that unless means are found whereby the ribbon can be very carefully and accurately wound upon a spool it will in many cases tend not to wind up properly and will instead jam up the cartridge, thus necessitating its replacement.